Why the 2023 NBA Draft could see a flurry of trades with a drop-off in talent in 2024, 2025 classes

The last few NBA Drafts have gone pretty much by the book. There weren’t any monster trades, the Oklahoma City Thunder used some of their 37 picks, but haven’t yet strategically packaged any of their first-round picks to move up for a particular prospect. Draft picks were collected for this year, anticipating this class being full of young talent.

In the June 22 draft, there are seven teams with multiple picks in the first round: Charlotte Hornets (No. 2 and No. 27), Portland Trail Blazers (No. 3 and No. 23), Houston Rockets (No. 4 and No. 20), Orlando Magic (No. 6 and No. 11), Utah Jazz (No. 9, No. 16 and No. 28), Brooklyn Nets (No. 21 and No. 22) and Indiana Pacers (No. 7, No. 26 and No. 29). In a loaded draft class, this gives these teams some flexibility to move up or down for certain players or package their picks in a trade. It also opens the conversation for other teams outside of the first round that might want to move up.

Victor Wembanyama is the assumed No. 1 pick to the San Antonio Spurs. The Hornets appear to be keeping their pick at No. 2, but things could get interesting at No. 3 with Portland. There are rumblings of a trade with the New Orleans Pelicans (trading down to No. 14 and packaging a few players for Scoot Henderson) and with all the guard options projected at the top, Houston could be entertaining trade talks at No. 4. A possible trade with Zion Williamson and the 14th pick could be on the table at No. 4 for Houston.

“I think this is the year where we’ll see a lot of teams try to make plays for trades and players that they want, whether that’s at the top of the draft or teams trading back,” one NBA scout told Yahoo Sports.

The draft classes in 2024 and 2025 are widely considered to be weaker with one-and-done talent and potential star prospects. There’s a reason why so many teams gathered multiple draft picks for this year, particularly those teams in the rebuild process. There is no clear-cut No. 1 (or even No. 2) prospect in the 2024 NBA Draft. There were 152 players who withdrew their names from the upcoming draft with many anticipating a drop-off in the next two draft cycles.

NBA personnel have been able to go and scout more and more high school events, getting early eyes on these young draft prospects coming up. Even leading up to the draft, NBA scouts were in attendance at the Pangos All-American Camp, U16 USA Basketball tryouts and U19 USA Basketball tryouts in the last three weeks.

“It’s been important for us to get eyes on these players early and track their development,” another NBA scout said. “It’s a good benchmark for us; there’s a reason why a lot of teams targeted this class over the next two draft classes coming up.”

There will hardly be any tanking next season, drastically different to what we saw this season with multiple teams making favorable moves to position themselves in a good spot to land a top draft pick this year.

After Wembanyama hears his named called first, it will most likely be Brandon Miller to the Hornets at No. 2 and after that, multiple trades are anticipated as different teams try to maximize their resources in this stacked draft class.